MORGANTOWN — Baylor’s knockout blow was a right cross from Jeremy Sochan … literally.
In the midst of the best game of his career, Taz Sherman had the ball at the top of the key and went to drive past the Baylor freshman.
Sochan’s right hand came down and struck Sherman right in the face.
And there was no call.
Let me say that again, Sherman took a blow to the face, and for whatever reason, the referees simply said, “Play on.”
The game was tied at 66 with 3:42 remaining at the time.
“It was huge,” WVU guard Sean McNeil said. “He was playing well and scoring the ball really well for us. I haven’t seen him since, but it obviously hurt us.”
You know what happened next. Matthew Mayer hit a couple of big shots, one of them coming after Sochan had just missed two free throws and Mayer grabbed the offensive rebound. He then added a 3-pointer moments later and Baylor held on for an 81-77 victory inside the Ferrell Center.
Sherman scored a career-high 29 points. Needed only 15 shots to get it, too. He nailed 6 of 11 from 3-point range, but he was not on the floor for the final minutes.
After getting helped to the bench, Sherman sat there for a minute with an ice pack against the left side of his face before walking back to the locker room.
Without him, went the Mountaineers’ best chance of pulling off what would have been a major upset.
There were some great moments in this game for WVU (13-8, 2-6 Big 12), which has now lost six straight.
McNeil nailed a 3-pointer in the second half while leaning sideways. That came with 11:15 left in the game and gave WVU a 55-46 lead.
“I had a glimpse of the rim,” McNeil said. “I didn’t see it go in. Once I heard our bench, I knew then it went in.”
Sherman, as part of his big night, nailed one in the first half from somewhere near Forth Worth.
Gabe Osabuohien found McNeil with a beautiful pass on McNeil’s back-door cut for a lay-up. Freshman guard Seth Wilson nailed a 3-pointer at the buzzer to end a 16-1 run that gave the Mountaineers a 39-31 halftime lead.
This WVU team battled like it never has all season.
Baylor (19-3, 7-2) still took advantage of some things. The Bears had a sizeable 36-26 rebounding advantage and outscored the Mountaineers in the paint, 42-20, but if WVU head coach Bob Huggins had pleaded for his players to show some heart after losing five in a row, he got it on Monday.
WVU, minus a few miscues on some poor inbounds passes and a bad turnover from McNeil when he lost the ball while simply dribbling up the court, played inspired ball throughout the first half.
Sherman, you can say, is back to being the old Taz Sherman after he dealt with a bad case of COVID-19 and lost a considerable amount of weight.
Isaiah Cottrell came out early and looked good on offense, but still got outgunned on the boards.
“We finally came out and played,” Huggins told ESPN before heading into the locker room.
The blow to Sherman’s face — and we’re obviously not saying Sochan did it on purpose — ended up being a hurtful nail in the Mountaineers’ coffin.
There has been plenty of them in recent weeks. WVU’s losing streak is now at six games, tied for the longest in Huggins’ 15 years as the Mountaineers’ coach.
Up next for WVU is two more ranked teams: No. 14 Texas Tech on Saturday and No. 20 Iowa State next week.
We don’t know what’s going to happen or if this streak comes to an end sometime soon or not.
It’s just a damn shame we didn’t get a chance to see the Mountaineers at their best in the final minutes on Monday to try and end the streak.
At the very least, a whistle should have been blown on that play. Those refs really failed at the worst possible moment.
TWEET @bigjax3211
